Excerpt from Shakespeare and the Bible: To Which Is Added Prayers on the Stage, Proper and Improper; Shakespeare's Use of the Sacred Name of Deity; The Stage Viewed From a Scriptural and Moral Point; The Old Mysteries and Moralities Precursors of the English Stage Where, all unrivalled, all alone, Bold Shakespeare sat, and look'd creation through, The minstrel monarch of the worlds he drew P That throne is cold that lyre in death unstrung, On whose proud note delighted wonder hung, Yet old oblivion, as in wrath he sweeps, One spot shall spare - the grave where Shakespeare sleeps. Rulers and ruled in common gloom may lie, But Nature's laureate bards shall never die, Art's chiselled boast, and glory's trophied shore, Must live in numbers, or can live no more. While sculptured Jove some nameless waste may claim, Still rolls th' Olympic car in Pindar's fame; Troy's doubtful walls, in ashes passed away, Yet frown on Greece in Homer's deathless lay Rome slowly sinking in her crumbling fanes, Stands all immortal in her Maro's strains So, too, yon giant empress of the isles, On whose broad sway the sun forever smiles, TO Time's unsparing rage one day must bend, And all her triumphs in her Shakespeare end. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.